The Degradation of Democracy

 For as long as I have taught classes on government and politics, I have taught my students that in a democracy citizens get the government that they deserve.  What I mean by that is that democracy requires cultivation.  There must be active participation of the citizens.  To function well, those citizens must do their part - they must try to be informed; they have to ask hard questions and search for real answers.  They must be prepared to reject the lies and deceptions of charlatans.  It’s not easy and it’s made frustrating by politics, the grab for power that all participants in the process sometimes engage in.  But the work to cultivate democracy must happen.  Failure of the citizens to do that work results in the degradation of democracy.  When that happens, the work to restore democracy becomes harder still because the citizens have lost the habits of good citizenship.

I thought of this as I watched the disaster that was Tuesday night’s presidential debate.  It was a real-time display of the shame our republic has become.  To be sure, at the heart of our current crisis is Donald Trump.  He cares only for himself, a fact made apparent over and over since he began his bid for the presidency.  That he has been enabled by a political party so eager to grab power that they are willfully blind to the damage they’ve done to the republic makes the situation much worse.    

On Tuesday night, Joe Biden lost his way more than I would have liked.  The yelling and shouting over one another in a time supposedly devoted to a serious conversation about our national path forward was disgraceful and further proof of the crisis we are in.  A candidate would have to be superhuman not to take the bait from Trump.  But even in the midst of it, Biden persistently regrouped, and sometimes acted like a responsible leader, redirecting the conversation to the needs of his fellow Americans.  It couldn’t have been easy to do; it certainly wasn’t easy to watch.

At the close of the night, as the president of all Americans refused to condemn white supremacy, it felt as if we had achieved a new national low.  In the midst of a series of national crises, including a pandemic he has deliberately and cruelly mismanaged, Donald Trump did what is no longer the unthinkable: he blew the racist dog whistle that he used when he first launched his malevolent ambitions.  This time it was less a whistle than it was a siren.

And so here we are, at a national low point willfully brought on by a man who lied when he swore to uphold our Constitution and the imperfect democratic republic that it created.  Trump is in it for himself and that could ruin us all.  We are in a crisis: a crisis of democracy, a crisis of conscience, and if the president succeeds in persuading his supporters that voting is flawed despite ample evidence that it is not, our low-grade Constitutional crisis will blow up with a fevered roar.  

There is a remedy and it can be found in the citizens.  We must actively participate; we must cast our ballots and we must follow that vote by putting in the hard work to cultivate our democracy.  We must recognize and believe that the whole of this nation is greater than its parts.  I have always believed that we have this power within us. I know the obstacles ahead but still I live in hope.

September Book Report: No Ordinary Time

All summer long, in preparation to once again teach 20th century history, I read (and re-read) books about the last century  One of the very best re-reads was Doris Kearns Goodwin’s 1994 Pulitizer Prize winning history, No Ordinary Time, about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Home Front in WWII.  

The book is carefully researched and thorough; the context of the Roosevelt story is present as the narrative flows well and the reader is never in doubt as to the challenges of the period.  Neither is there doubt about the power of good, capable, strong, measured, and steadfast leadership.  Though the 1940s did not receive (or demand) the transparency that Americans now need in their leaders, neither was the secrecy of the era about deception or a cover for the ignorant and selfish cowardice that I see and hear so often from our current president and his political allies.  

If anything, Franklin Roosevelt took care to provide Americans with the truth always accompanied with a sense that together we could accomplish great things, not just for one another but also for the world.  I miss that sense that our national purpose must be greater than ourselves.  

In the very last speech that he wrote, in April of 1945, as the war in Europe was coming to a close, Roosevelt wrote words reminiscent of his oft-quoted, 1933 reminder that “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  This time writing, “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith,”  the president set the stage for the post-war challenges he knew his nation would face.  Roosevelt would never deliver the words in the form of speech because he died later in the day that he wrote them.  But the words are a solace and comfort today.  

I’ve read these words before but in early September, as I was ginning up for the start of a hybrid teaching school year and watching the events of our coming November election with anxiety-tinged hope, I thought again about our need to face fear and doubts with active faith.  The words have provided comfort throughout this month and, I suspect, they will give me hope for the rest of this crazy year. 

The Path Ahead

Lately, my favorite pictures to make with my phone are ones with a path at the center.  

It’s like my subconscious is cheering us on as we venture into the unknown.

I’ve worked very hard to remind myself to live in and appreciate the here and now.  These days. I’m able look toward the future’s uncertainty with a sense that new and manageable challenges await.  That’s a good thing, I believe.

A Good Day

T and I took a day over the weekend to go to one of our favorite places and stop by some farm stands along the way.  We came home in possession of a variety of Fall squashes and a jug of fresh apple cider.  Better than that, we came home relaxed.  We had a picnic at our favorite place up north and found that someone had left a smidge of sidewalk chalk on the table.  We put the chalk to good use.

The blue sky at Jenny Jump Park is nearly always a special shade of lovely.  The day was warm but we've had some cold nights and leaves are just starting to change.  As September merges into October, I am grateful for days like this; a reminder to relax my mind and find space to simply be.

Dogwood Mornings

Every morning I stand in the back windows of my house and admire the dogwood tree.  These days, it’s looking decidedly like Fall truly is on the horizon.

When October arrives next week, I’ll choose a day for a weekly dogwood picture.  Fall is lovely in the backyard and these days, I embrace all the beauty that I can find.

The Porch Season

Weekday mornings on the porch have come to a rather abrupt halt this week.  It’s not the cool weather that ended the habit, instead it’s the darkness of the mornings.  We’ve reached the point in the season when the sun rises past 6:45 and even with the porch lights switched on, it’s just too dark for my 52 year old eyes to read comfortably.

I can sit out in the afternoons and on weekend mornings but the writing is clear —— the porch season is coming to a close.  Most years, I accept trading my time on the front porch at the close of the season as part of the happy transition to Fall and then Winter - the cozy seasons, if you will - but this year it’s hard to say goodbye.

I think that’s a side effect of life in a pandemic.  I am worried about what happens with Covid-19 when we are all cooped up indoors. I feel safe at home and even at school we all fully intend to keep the windows open.  But the uncertainty about Winter and this dreadful disease is certainly ever-present.

If I let it, the worry and uncertainty can consume me.  So I make a concerted effort to instead welcome each day and set my worry aside.  Time I spent on the front porch, grateful for the blessings of the green plants and fresh air, certainly helps to ease the worry.  That’s happy!

Doing Hard Things

My second week of hybrid learning school starts today.  When we decided to invite half of the students on campus for each week (the other half learn remotely), I knew that we had selected the hardest of all teaching options.  Last week, as classes got underway, the difficulty of the choice was confirmed.

This week, the students in class last week will be remote and the second crop of students will be present in class.  Some families have opted to be all remote and with those kids mixed in, more than half of each class I teach is off campus each day.  Teaching school with masks and social distancing, with more than half of each class learning remote, is more than exhausting.  It’s also really, really hard.  

Though my classroom is familiar (albeit with plexiglass and desks spaced 6 feet apart), so much of class is different, starting with the tiresome but necessary mask worn while teaching to masked face students in person while the rest of the class chimes in via Zoom.  For years, I’ve taught lessons using an iPad to broadcast notes on the screen.  In hybrid learning, I must choose being seeing the faces of my remote students or broadcasting my notes.  I’ve chosen student faces but that makes the task of teaching students how to take notes much harder.  Lessons take longer and while I don’t feel the pressure to cover material at the same pace as the pre-pandemic world, I’m increasingly aware of what we lose in this method of schooling.

For now, I persevere, aware that there is no other option available.  I relish the laughter and chatter of students doing what middle schoolers do.  I’m also aware of the relative privilege of my students, all of whom have Internet access and a brand-new iPad; most have two devices while they learn remotely.  If it’s hard for us, I can only imagine how much harder it is for teachers whose students have so much less to work with.

But that doesn’t mean my exhaustion isn’t real.  That doesn’t mean my lift isn’t heavy.  Each day I remind myself and then my students that we can do hard things.  And each day we do the hard thing moves us one day closer to a brighter horizon.  

And with that, a new week of hard things begins.

A Neck Less Burdened

I was in the car Friday evening, half listening to NPR, when the top of the hour headline reported that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away.  I immediately pulled over to catch my breath and confirm the news.  With no confirmation at the New York Times website or even at NPR, I drove home trying to convince myself that I had misheard the headline.   The immediate silence of my phone let me briefly believe it.  But as I pulled into town my phone blew up with texts.  The overwhelmingly sad news was confirmed by each of those dings.

My son.

Then my sister.

And my mother.

Three friends.

It was true.

To say that we’ve lost an icon is to underestimate the value of RBG in the world, but especially in the world of women my age.  I am 52 and though I am well-familiar with sexism, I came of age with opportunities that Justice Ginsburg never had and that her work provided for women like me.  Because of her efforts, I came of age with a neck less burdened by the feet of powerful men.  It was the thing she sought when she appeared before the Super Court as a litigant in 1970s, working tirelessly to give women access to the equal protection of the law promised us all by the 14th amendment.  

It was a goal she continued to work toward when she joined the Supreme Court in 1993, only the second female justice on the Court.

I am grateful to Justice Ginsburg for a lifetime of work on behalf of true equality under the law.  It’s clear that she hoped to serve long enough to be replaced by a Democratic president.  She’s gone and we cannot give her that wish.  But we can honor her lifetime of service and her final wish by fighting harder than ever for a nation of justice for all.  She gave us our chance and the least we can do is work harder than ever to secure it for the next generation.  

Thank you, Justice Ginsburg.  Rest in power.

Bulletin Board Season Opener

My annual bulletin board (which is really more of an inspiration board) is one of my favorite back-to-school traditions.  In all the insanity of planning for our hybrid teaching school year, I considered letting last year’s board hang around.  But I love this tradition and spend all year collecting things for my bulletin board and so last week I set to work on the 2020-2021 bulletin board.

I am glad that I found the time because it makes me happy every day.

Dogwood Days

Though I am still wearing flip flops and sitting outside for all my spare moments, Fall is most clearly in the air.  The dogwood leaves are leading the way and they are lovely.

Jenny Jump

Before I returned to meetings at school on August 31,  T and I stole a few hours on that last weekend to visit Jenny Jump State Park, one of our favorite places in New Jersey.

The sky was clear blue and lovely.

The park was its usual quiet, which is always nice to experience when you live in a densely populated state like New Jersey.  It was verdant green, even as the Summer prepares to end.

Just a few hours of rest but it was lovely, a down payment of still and quiet in what is sure to be a busy Fall.

The Little School That Could

School starts today.  To say that I am nervous, excited, worried, hopeful…….all of that is an epic understatement.  But children belong in school, a place separate from home in the company of their friends and led by adults who care deeply.  My school is this place and today, nearly 6 months after we shut the doors and went to remote learning, we are able to have students in school again.

We have masks and open windows, social distancing, and carefully marked hallways.  Daily we are at half capacity with 50% of our students learning remote and the other half on campus for alternating weeks.  The amount of preparation put into this day is staggering.  

But with all of my heart and soul, I am ready for this.

Flowers

My 2020 backyard garden was started with the best of intentions and grew quite nicely until the backyard mulberry tree leafed out and began to shade the garden patch.  The mulberry needs to be trimmed - cut down, probably - but that messy chore fell victim to the pandemic.  If T and I don’t cut it back this Winter, I will hire a tree service to come out and do it come next Spring.  Its presence meant that the zinnias took longer than I like to wait for flowers to bloom.  But there are enough now to start off a bouquet and that is a most welcome treat as school is underway.

Good Morning Indeed

We had meetings all of last week and this week will feature some more meetings and then, on Thursday and Friday, actual school - in person and with students.  At this point, 6 months after I last taught students in person, the very idea of in-person school feels special.

For grades 6-12, my school is using a hybrid model, with half of the students present for in-person in class each week and the other half learning remote.  Each week, we’ll swap out the group on campus.  In class together will look radically different - with masks and socially distant seating. plexiglass shields and rules about hand-washing and hallway walking and a zillion other differences.  It could seem daunting but for the fact that I am so glad that we will be able to teach and learn together in person.  I know that most teachers and students won’t have this benefit and I am grateful that my students will.

I don’t know how long this method of school will last. I’ve never taught hybrid before and I expect it will be exhausting.  I’m still sorting out what assessments look like in this teaching model.  The list of uncertainties goes on and on and on.

But, after months and months of anxious planning, we have arrived at this day.  I am so very glad that we’re here.

Filling in the Gaps

I spent the last weekend of this crazy pandemic Summer filling in the gaps from my blog postings since August 11, the last time I had posted.  That I hadn’t posted since then wasn’t because I hadn’t been writing.  I had been writing in every spare moment I had.  

But, as expected of thoughts thrown down on a page in increasingly rare spare moments, there were trails of incomplete ideas everywhere.  I made those ideas a priority over the long weekend, cleaning them up and adding photos and generally feeling glad for the journal that feeds this blog, a register of the memories and stories of my life, my work, and my blessings.

Biscuit Magician

Though I’ve been making them for more than 30 years, I always love to stir together a batch of homemade biscuits.  My biscuit-making career started with the help of my now kitchen-stained Better Homes and Garden cookbook.  Using that recipe, I taught myself to make biscuits.  Over the years, I’ve read countless recipes and cooking magazine articles about the making of biscuits and then I’ve honed my technique accordingly.  I can make all sort of biscuits: sourdough, cheese, cornmeal, angel……but my favorite is the delicious old-fashioned basic: a buttermilk biscuit.

Buttermilk was not a regular part of my mother’s kitchen, but is was a part of my grandmother’s and it was certainly present in the Southern kitchens where I honed my biscuit-making skills.  I don’t always have fresh buttermilk on hand but when I do buy it at the market, usually to make fried chicken, blue cheese salad dressing, or chocolate cake, I always make sure to stir up some fresh buttermilk biscuits.

I

I measure the ingredients into a big bowl and as I stir together the dough, memories of previous biscuits flow through my mind.  Biscuits cut into a heart shape for an impromptu Valentine’s Day celebration; biscuits served with bacon, cream gravy, and scrambled eggs on a cold Winter morning; biscuits made in a hot Summer kitchen to slather with a batch of freshly-made jam; the batch I made at JT’s request in the fleeting days before we loaded up the car and drove him to college…..my memory fills with an steady parade of warm biscuits.  

I cut them out and line them up on the baking sheet, taking care that they lightly touch one another and then carefully dimpling each one with a slight press of my thumb before I slide the pan into a hot oven.

12 minutes later, there is a basket full of steamy hot biscuits, ready for hungry eaters and stirred together with memories and loves as the unspoken but magical ingredient.  

September 5

There have been moments in my life when I have known things with certainty.  These moments are a wave of realization that always feels sudden but despite that they are reliable and have never been wrong.  When I left California for graduate school in Tennessee, driving East with my dad on a lonely strip of I-40 between Oklahoma City and Little Rock, Arkansas, I suddenly knew that I would never be back to California for good.  I felt the same way about Tennessee, a place I loved dearly.  Sitting on a rainy runway in Memphis waiting to fly to Nebraska, where I had made a home - temporary, as it turned out - I suddenly knew that I would not live in Tennessee again.  In Nebraska, when I got pregnant, I knew that it was the cells of little boy that I carried within me.  There was a horrifying moment in May of 2006 when I knew that my family of three was going to be broken beyond repair and that my little boy and I would be required to built a new family of two.  Many years later, when that little boy was a young man of 16 and we first visited the campus of Springfield College, I knew that campus would be the place he would attend college.

When the feeling of certainty fills me, I recognize and honor that truth, even if it’s a hard or painful truth to absorb.  In that moment, it simply is, and I believe it.

I think of these powerful moments now as we live in the clouded vortex of uncertainty that is life in a pandemic.  I search my mind for the power to know what the future will hold.  For hours, I sometimes wrack my brain looking for moments of seeming-certainty that blew up into an unexpected outcome.  Oddly, they almost always surround politics: the elections of 1984; of 2000; of 2016.  Now, in hindsight, I am not sure if it was certainty or hope that I felt on the eve of those elections.  I feel certain of Donald Trump’s defeat in November 2020 and I fear it is the triumph of hope over instinct that causes me to feel this way.

One of the hardest parts of life in 2020 has been the terribly certain uncertainty of it all.  I don’t just mean those powerful moments of certainty about my life that I have sometimes felt; those are rare and don't come along very often.  I mean any kind of certainty at all.  I feel like my last day of certainty was March 13, when we took an unexpected day off from classes.  I felt a certainty on that day that the rest of the school year would be remote.  Though school was not in session on that unseasonably warm and beautiful Friday, I came to work and stayed late into the afternoon, scanning my lessons into digital format so that I could teach from home through the end of the school year. 

Yesterday morning, I thought of that Friday the 13th as I drove to school at 7 am for New Student Day, a tradition at my school that I have participated in for each year that I have been here.  It was a moment of certainty —— I knew what to do because I had been through those motions so many times.  To be sure, it was a different New Student Day than I have ever experienced - masked, socially distant, with an obligation to take the children’s temperature before they could join the activities.  But in other ways, in the nervous smiles of new students, in the eager questions from their parents, the day was certainly familiar.  In 2020, such a sense of familiar certainty is welcome, so very welcome.

Front Porch in September

This is the last full month that my houseplants can be guaranteed of a hospitable climate on the front porch.  Some time in October, a freeze warning will hover into view and all these plants will make their way inside for the cold weather season.  The flowers, which are looking blowsy and overgrown, will fade in the chill.  When that happens, the cooler weather will also send me reluctantly inside.  But that time isn’t here yet and so I plan to enjoy every bit of the warm days that remain.  The table has plants that have grown splendidly all Summer long.  

The sunflower flag marks the close of Summer, even if it doesn’t quite welcome it.

The Summer wreath is back for one last month.

The porch remains welcoming and when there is time, I always take advantage of a few minutes in this rocker.

That’s happy!

Frontyard Flowerbed in September

This flowerbed is once again a riotous mess.  The jewelweed has taken center stage.  I like this wildflower, so that is fine by me.  Not fine by me are the volunteer rose of Sharon blooms, the remnants of an old Rose of Sharon that used to grow here and is rather a mess to contain (which is why I took it out….or tried anyway).

The hostas, now baked by the August heat, are ready for some cooler Fall weather.

The elephant ear hostas are staking a stab all Fall colors.

All Summer long I’ve had the thought that ample time for gardening would suddenly appear for me.  In truth, most of what appeared was ample work to be completed in order to start the school year.  So the garden was short-changed as July slipped into August and now September.  I have hopes that the weekends in the Fall will offer time for me to trim back this flowerbed and I hope that it will.  October 1st will tell that story……